![]() I’m pretty sure “sound bite” is the mondegreen. Therein you find the humor of the phrase “sound byte” as a small chunk of information. ![]() “Byte” was coined in the 1960s–in reference to a very small unit of digital data when 64 bytes of data storage was rather large. I have never seen “nickle” used, and the origins probably explain why. The misspelling is probably to force the “e” to be at the end of the word, like “byte” and “nybble”. Reported among developers for Mattel’s GI 1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. The Jargon file’s nickle entry says it is so derived: Marinoff’s explanation of its etymology strikes me as an ad hoc rationalization made after the fact.Ĭommentary by Ann Burlingham, 0 at 2:23 pm I forgot to add: if the OED is correct, and I’m inclined to believe that it is, that the phrase “sound bite” first appeared in print in 1980, I don’t think it’s likely that its origins had anything to do with digital storage. Anything more than that, you’re losing them” (emphasis mine). The OED cites the 22 June 1980 Washington Post for the first use of the phrase: “Remember that any editor watching needs a concise, 30-second sound bite. edited into a news report on account of its aphoristic or provocative quality transf., a phrase or sentence intended by its speaker to be quoted in this way.” U.S., a brief extract from a recorded interview, statement, etc., usu. In 1993, “sound bite” was added under “sound” with this definition: “orig. ![]() ![]() You’ll be happy to know that the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with you. I think but cannot conclusively prove that Marinoff and other defenders of this eggcorn are mistaken about the origins of “sound bite” I remain confident that it predates readily-available digital storage of sound by some time, and in any event a single byte is not very much information at all, and definitely not enough space to store, say, a 10 or 30-second sound recording from a politician or talking head. The proper name, whos refcerence bears the intended sense, is the homonym “sound-byte.” In the technical language of digital computing, a “byte” is a chunk (or word) of data, typically eight bits in length, which is processed as a single unit of information. You think you know what this means, don’t you? If so, then you probably understand its reference, but not its sense. My pet homonymic peeve-again symptomatic of a culture rendered senseless by fuzzy speech-is named “sound bite”. It was immediately noticed and commented upon.Ĭuriously, while googling for a book using the term, I found it used and defended in “Philosophical Practice” by Lou Marinoff: I have actually used this myself at least once that I know of: a few years ago I was a regular on an Australian media-watching newsgroup and inadvertently used the eggcorn to ask for more information about something I’d seen the night before. “Sound byte” seems to me to be born of our increasinly digitized world it’s probably more common online than offline. It doesn’t help any that “byte” itself is a pun on “bite” and is accompanied by “nybble” (for five four bits) and a few other words in the same vein.
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